David Condon Finds

  A Local’s Thoughts on Visiting the Kingdom If you’re planning a trip to Ireland, there’s a very good chance County Kerry will appear somewhere in your research. Travel guides and postcards love the place, and for good reason. But Kerry isn’t just another scenic stop on the Wild Atlantic Way. It’s a county with a strong personality, dramatic landscapes, and weather that can change its mind several times before lunchtime. So the real question isn’t “Is Kerry beautiful?” It absolutely is. The better question might be: Is Kerry the right destination for your kind of trip? As someone living in the county, here’s my honest take. What Makes Kerry So Special? Kerry has a combination of landscapes that are difficult to find anywhere else in Ireland. Within a short drive you can go from Atlantic coastline to mountain passes, quiet villages to lively towns, and peaceful countryside to packed tourist hotspots. Some of the highlights people travel here for include: ● The Ring of K...

There’s a moment that catches a lot of us off guard. You’re walking through a shop, maybe not even thinking about it, and then you see them… rows of LEGO sets on the shelves. Something clicks instantly. It’s not just nostalgia. It’s something unfinished. For me, it went all the way back to childhood. We didn’t have a lot of money growing up, so LEGO was usually a small set at Christmas if I was lucky. I remember walking along the shelves in the local toy shop, looking at the big castle and knight sets, knowing full well they weren’t coming home with me. At some point, quietly and without telling anyone, I made a promise to myself: Someday, I’ll buy the big ones.  I didn’t come back to LEGO for years after that but that promise lingered in the background, just beneath the surface. Once you start getting back into LEGO as an adult, it doesn’t take long before retired sets, display models and collector prices start appearing on your radar. I go into that wider collecting world in...

LEGO is not just something children play with anymore. For many adults, LEGO has become a hobby, a display collection, a nostalgia trigger, a design interest, and in some cases, even a form of investment. That does not mean every LEGO set is going to become valuable, or that collecting LEGO is a guaranteed way to make money. Far from it. But it does explain why adult LEGO collecting has changed so much. Some sets are bought to build and enjoy. Some are bought to display. Some are kept sealed in boxes. Others disappear from shelves, retire, rise in price, and suddenly become much harder to find. That growing value has also brought a darker side to the hobby. LEGO is now valuable enough to attract thieves, resellers, and organised retail crime in some places. That sounds strange if you still think of LEGO as a simple toy, but once you look at the prices of retired sets, it starts to make sense. This hub post brings together my LEGO collecting posts that look at the bigger picture: ad...

Tralee is one of those towns that can be surprisingly easy to underestimate. For some people, it is a shopping town. For others, it is a base for exploring Kerry. Some people pass through on the way to Dingle, Killarney, North Kerry or West Kerry, while others come for the Rose of Tralee, a weekend away, a family visit, a night out, or a few days of slower exploring. But Tralee is also a real working town. People live here, work here, eat here, shop here, socialise here and make a life here. That is why I think local guides can be useful. Not the polished tourist-board version of a place, but the practical version. Where to eat. What to do when it rains. Where to go for a pint. Where to find a thoughtful gift. Where to grab lunch. What to do when you are tired, hungry, or trying to fill a few hours. Illustration inspired by Tralee, created for this local guide to things to do, places to eat, pubs and gift ideas. AI-generated. Over time, I have written several Tralee-focused posts on ...

I have been using Amazon affiliate links on my blogs for a while now, especially on posts where I mention products, DVDs, Blu-rays, books, LEGO sets, gadgets, or anything else that naturally fits the topic. I have also written before about whether Amazon Prime is worth it , because for many shoppers the decision is not just about one product, but about delivery, convenience, subscriptions and whether Amazon still makes sense for the way they buy online. For a long time, the basic affiliate link was the obvious way to do it. You write about a product, add the link, include a clear affiliate notice, and hope someone clicks through. But I was never completely happy with that setup. I am writing this fairly soon after setting mine up, so this is not a long-term review. It is more of a first look from someone who already uses Amazon affiliate links and is trying to work out whether a Storefront is worth the effort. Single product links can be useful, but they are also quite limited. They ...